Overview: In this platformer, the player is a ninja who must defeat all the Nazi robots within a level in less than 10 seconds (hence the game's title). While completing a level under 10 seconds is sufficient to proceed with the game, players can strive to unlock one, two, or three stars by beating predetermined benchmarks.
[20140424][20181218 Edit]
20150524:
Today I played 10 Second Ninja on my laptop on fullscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080.
[20150524 Edit]
20160107:
Josh didn't believe that the levels were so short so I just had to load up the game and show him.
Steam: 114 minutes (total game time)
20160205 AM Hours:
Having previously completed the first and second world, today I finished the third, fourth, and fifth world. Afterwards I also started going through and improving my star ratings.
Below are some levels I couldn't figure out the first time around accompanied with my personal hint or solution to them:
"It Begins...": Shuriken faster than sword.
"Got Wood": Skim head.
"Leaf Me Alone": Maximum range of sword and midair jump.
"Winter Is Coming": Skim foot.
"Lets Play": Maximum range of sword and double jump.
"Emoticons": Full solution:
i) Throw a shuriken at far right robot
ii) Swipe the sword at both the regular and tank robot.
iii) Throw a shuriken through the tank robot towards the right (it will hit the other far right robot)
iv) Swipe the sword before going through the portal, it will kill the last robot.*
"<_<": Blue portal.**
">_>": Midair jump.**
"Run Forest Run": Shuriken faster than sword:
i) Throw a shuriken at far right robot
ii) Single jump and throw a shuriken at the closest robot to the left
iii) Double jump to the right
iv) Double jump to the left
v) Single jump and throw a shuriken to the right
vi) Swipe the sword to the left
Note: vi comes after v because the shuriken takes time to fly
*20191108: Alternative is to throw a shuriken. Possibly slower though. I got 1.70 while my best is 1.62.
**20191108: These are terrible hints. I don't understand how to use them. Lol.
20160205 Evening:
Waiting for my laundry to come out of the washer, I tried to accomplish the last remaining three star levels. While able to get one or two, I had several levels where I could not figure out where to save time.
"Rubber Ice Trays": Full solution:
i) Start to run right, jump and shuriken the far right robot, swipe and kill the other robot nearby, and midair jump onto the icicle.
ii) Throw a shuriken and it'll hit the robot below the icicle on the left.
iii) Jump onto the platform and throw a shuriken.
iv) Double jump and swipe the last robot.
"Red Run", 4.50: I prefer going right. Then I'd jump so the platform falls beneath the robot destroying him. Run to the left, double jump, shuriken to the right, swipe to the left, shuriken to the right, and swipe to the left. Partially theoretical.
"A Rock", 5.60: Shuriken to the right, single jump onto the rock, double jump onto to the right and swipe because I'm already facing that way, turn to the left and shuriken, jump onto the rock, double jump into the air and shuriken to the left and swipe to the right. I don't know which should go first. I have trouble throwing the shuriken first.
"A Hard Place", 5.48: I only trigger the first rock.
"o_o", 1.72, close: I was mainly doing double jump, shuriken, fall into portal, swipe, swipe. I also later tried, single jump into portal, swipe, shuriken, swipe but it was more inconsistent. Eventually I played around with pressing jump while inside the portal.
"Re: Vengence", 1.84, close: I quickly shuriken left and then right, swipe while running/falling into the portal. Jump, slash, and throw a shuriken.
"^_^", 4.94: Swipe first robot. Jump. Double jump up and shuriken. Double jump to platform and shuriken and swipe to kill tank (throwing a shuriken through the blue portal will eventually kill this tank, but its faster to kill it now). Jump and swipe the robot in the air, throw a shuriken through the blue portal, and swipe the final robot.
20191108 Comment:
Steam Game Time: 8.1 hours (total game time)
20191108:
Setup: Xbox Controller.
"Red Run", 4.24: At first I was repeating the following: 1) I went right. 2) Jumped on the platform and the robot will be destroyed for free. 3) Run to the left, shoot a shuriken. 4) Double jump, swipe, shuriken to the right (upper), shuriken to the right (lower), swipe. Then towards the end I was playing around with a variation. Between 3 and 4, I would do a quick turn to shuriken the robot on the right (lower). Then in the run where I achieved 4.24, I made a "mistake" and happened to get three stars. Unfortunately I wasn't recording and I have no idea what sequence I used.
Remark: In one YouTube video, the player destroys the robot on the right with a slash as he's jumping up at step 2. His time for the level is 4.30.
Steam Game Time: 8.6 hours (total game time) / 0.5 hours (session game time)
Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Humorous
+ Levels are short (at most 10 seconds per level - at least on a given run). Perfect for when you expect to be doing something else (e.g., taking out the trash or your MOBA queue pops).
+ Ninjas, robots, and Nazis.
Con:
- No ghost feature.
[20150524 Edit]
Recommendation:
While I enjoyed the game and found it just difficult enough to hold my attention, I wish it had a ghost and/or replay feature. With that being said, if you like Super Meat Boy (2010) and have completed it or grown bored of it, but want something similar, then definitely check out 10 Second Ninja.
If you simply like fast-paced games (e.g., Half-Minute Hero (2012)) or games with a humorous story (e.g., Rock of Ages (2011)), then you should also give 10 Second Ninja a try.
[20150524 Edit]
20220801:
Today I collected a handful of missing stars. At the end of the session, I still had one more to go ("A Hard Place").
Setup: Steam Deck. I kept confusing "R1" and "R2"; by default "R1" is retry and "R2" is throwing a shuriken. So I editted the controller so that "R1" is also throwing a shuriken and "L1" is retry. This was much better. Because this was a remapping at the level of the Steam settings, the game would still show "R1" as the button for retry. I would say this was good as it reduced the possibility of an accidental retry.
"A Rock", 5.54: Repeatedly jump and swipe while moving to the right. This weird technique will allow the ninja to attack both the robot above the platform and the one at the ground level. There's just enough time to make it back to the platform. Use a shuriken to the robot on the left. Then jump and use a shuriken on the last two robots up top.
"o_o", 1.70: Double jump, shuriken, fall into portal, swipe, swipe. After some experimentation, I figured the previous sequence was the way to go and leave the rest to luck (because sometimes I would get 1.72). And, in fact, after enough repetition I got 1.70.
"Re: Vengence", 1.80: I independently came to a similar, if not the same, conclusion as my previous entry. I might have prioritized throwing the shuriken. In general, it is better to throw a shuriken before swiping due to the time it takes the shuriken to travel.
"^_^", 4.76: As with "Re: Vengence," I independently came to a similar conclusion as my previous entry. However, I made sure to throw a shuriken first, followed by two swipes. One of the key observations I made was the importance of beating the platform. That is, finding every moment to jump and reach higher elevation is the primary blocker to a fast time on this level.
Steam Game Time: 10.4 hours (total game time) / 1.8 hours (session game time)
20220802:
Holy moly. So this last level, "A Hard Place," was giving me so much trouble that I tried to look at a speedrun for inspiration. One video I watched was a timescale assisted run which allows for an interesting wall jump. Another video was more applicable but didn't drastically differ in my approach. The main difference was a need for me to cut down on horizontal movement:
- Same: jump and throw a dart while triggering first platform
- Personal: do a small jump for timing
- Same: double jump to the right
- Time Loss: my main variations were "turn left, shuriken, run right, swipe" and "run right, swipe, turn left, shuriken." First, running right should be omitted. Second, "turn left, shuriken, turn right, swipe" is best, as it maintains the same pattern for later.
- Same: double jump and swipe. Time Loss: it's best to try and land as close to the edge as possible
- Time Loss: among variations, I threw a shuriken to the left, landed back inside and swiped the top right robot from below. Upon learning from the YouTube video, I arrived at "tight double jump onto the ledge, turn left, shuriken, turn right, swipe." As mentioned earlier, this creates a repeated pattern which is easier for the fingers to execute.
Note that while I watched the video and learned from it, the speed runner executed the level in 4.74 (with a best of 4.64), and I was only able to do the level in 5.06.
Steam Game Time: 12.5 hours (total game time) / 2.1 hours (session game time)
20220814:
Today I tried hard mode twice, but didn't make it so far because I have forgetten the best routes for each level. As such, afterwards I went through all the levels and tried again. While I did better, there was still a lot I had yet to commit to memory. In particular, I should jot down notes for the portal levels. More generally, a cheat sheet for each level would be good preperation.
Gameplay Log:
Tried hard mode. 20 out of 40.
Tried again. 24 out of 40.
Went through all the levels again.
Tried hard mode again and got to 28 out of 40.
Steam Game Time: 14.2 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
20220814 Evening & 20220815 AM Hours:
I executed my plan of taking notes and then I tried hard mode again, many times over. Though the notes don't necessarily help, the exercise of creating the notes generally helped. Note that there are situations where the optimization of the individual level is much to risky to use during hard mode.
Overall, I made a lot of progress, and the first bonus level absolutely destroys me (a lot of failures results in losing precious time). I thought I understood how to play it during practice, but its position near the end of so many consecutive levels increases its difficulty. Furthermore, I began to get tired and I was beginning to play poorly and more inconsistently. For example, one of the early levels requires a drop, followed by well-timed shuriken, and then a jump. When fresh, I was probably hitting this movement with at least an 80% success. In contrast, towards the end of play, I was probably looking at most 20% success. With that being said, at one point I was on the 39th level and such progress motivated me to keep on trying despite feeling tired.
I think I'll be able to complete hard mode with a fresh mind.
As a side note, a fun aspect of training for Hard Mode was discovering new optimizations and getting new PBs on various levels.
Gameplay Log:
I went through all the levels and took notes.
Tried hard mode multiple times. Furthest progress was 39 out of 40.
Steam Game Time: 19.5 hours (total game time) / 5.3 hours (session game time)
20220815:
Today I completed hard mode! I think I had approximately three full runs (i.e., expiration of 4 minutes) with the last run ending in success and many partial attempts in between. And when I did succeed, I barely made it: I had completed the mode in about 234 seconds (out of the alloted 240 seconds). However, that's good enough for me! Note that according to the Steam Achievements page, 4% of players (who own 10 Second Ninja on Steam) have completed this achievement. But only 80% of all players have even completed the tutorial so 20% of owners haven't even played the game yet. Normalizing, about 5% of players who have started the game have completed hard mode, and about 9% of players who have completed the first world have completed hard mode.
Steam Game Time: 20.2 hours (total game time) / 0.7 hours (session game time)
20231224:
Ensuring backup of game from Steam Deck to PC.
Steam Game Time: 20.2 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.0 hours (session game time)
10 Second Ninja (PC) (2014)
Relevant Links:
10 Second Ninja Website
10 Second Ninja (Steam Store Page)
10 Second Ninja (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
 |
| So... what's the best way to defeat all five Nazi robots? |
[20140424][20181218 Edit]
20150524:
Today I played 10 Second Ninja on my laptop on fullscreen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080.
[20150524 Edit]
20160107:
Josh didn't believe that the levels were so short so I just had to load up the game and show him.
Steam: 114 minutes (total game time)
20160205 AM Hours:
Having previously completed the first and second world, today I finished the third, fourth, and fifth world. Afterwards I also started going through and improving my star ratings.
 |
| Your first battle against Robot Hitler. |
Below are some levels I couldn't figure out the first time around accompanied with my personal hint or solution to them:
"It Begins...": Shuriken faster than sword.
"Got Wood": Skim head.
"Leaf Me Alone": Maximum range of sword and midair jump.
"Winter Is Coming": Skim foot.
"Lets Play": Maximum range of sword and double jump.
"Emoticons": Full solution:
i) Throw a shuriken at far right robot
ii) Swipe the sword at both the regular and tank robot.
iii) Throw a shuriken through the tank robot towards the right (it will hit the other far right robot)
iv) Swipe the sword before going through the portal, it will kill the last robot.*
"<_<": Blue portal.**
">_>": Midair jump.**
"Run Forest Run": Shuriken faster than sword:
i) Throw a shuriken at far right robot
ii) Single jump and throw a shuriken at the closest robot to the left
iii) Double jump to the right
iv) Double jump to the left
v) Single jump and throw a shuriken to the right
vi) Swipe the sword to the left
Note: vi comes after v because the shuriken takes time to fly
 |
| He's painting... with no arms. |
*20191108: Alternative is to throw a shuriken. Possibly slower though. I got 1.70 while my best is 1.62.
**20191108: These are terrible hints. I don't understand how to use them. Lol.
20160205 Evening:
Waiting for my laundry to come out of the washer, I tried to accomplish the last remaining three star levels. While able to get one or two, I had several levels where I could not figure out where to save time.
"Rubber Ice Trays": Full solution:
i) Start to run right, jump and shuriken the far right robot, swipe and kill the other robot nearby, and midair jump onto the icicle.
ii) Throw a shuriken and it'll hit the robot below the icicle on the left.
iii) Jump onto the platform and throw a shuriken.
iv) Double jump and swipe the last robot.
"Red Run", 4.50: I prefer going right. Then I'd jump so the platform falls beneath the robot destroying him. Run to the left, double jump, shuriken to the right, swipe to the left, shuriken to the right, and swipe to the left. Partially theoretical.
"A Rock", 5.60: Shuriken to the right, single jump onto the rock, double jump onto to the right and swipe because I'm already facing that way, turn to the left and shuriken, jump onto the rock, double jump into the air and shuriken to the left and swipe to the right. I don't know which should go first. I have trouble throwing the shuriken first.
"A Hard Place", 5.48: I only trigger the first rock.
"o_o", 1.72, close: I was mainly doing double jump, shuriken, fall into portal, swipe, swipe. I also later tried, single jump into portal, swipe, shuriken, swipe but it was more inconsistent. Eventually I played around with pressing jump while inside the portal.
"Re: Vengence", 1.84, close: I quickly shuriken left and then right, swipe while running/falling into the portal. Jump, slash, and throw a shuriken.
"^_^", 4.94: Swipe first robot. Jump. Double jump up and shuriken. Double jump to platform and shuriken and swipe to kill tank (throwing a shuriken through the blue portal will eventually kill this tank, but its faster to kill it now). Jump and swipe the robot in the air, throw a shuriken through the blue portal, and swipe the final robot.
20191108 Comment:
Steam Game Time: 8.1 hours (total game time)
20191108:
Setup: Xbox Controller.
"Red Run", 4.24: At first I was repeating the following: 1) I went right. 2) Jumped on the platform and the robot will be destroyed for free. 3) Run to the left, shoot a shuriken. 4) Double jump, swipe, shuriken to the right (upper), shuriken to the right (lower), swipe. Then towards the end I was playing around with a variation. Between 3 and 4, I would do a quick turn to shuriken the robot on the right (lower). Then in the run where I achieved 4.24, I made a "mistake" and happened to get three stars. Unfortunately I wasn't recording and I have no idea what sequence I used.
Remark: In one YouTube video, the player destroys the robot on the right with a slash as he's jumping up at step 2. His time for the level is 4.30.
 |
| The FUUUUUUUUUU- Steam achievement |
Steam Game Time: 8.6 hours (total game time) / 0.5 hours (session game time)
Thoughts:
Pros:
+ Humorous
+ Levels are short (at most 10 seconds per level - at least on a given run). Perfect for when you expect to be doing something else (e.g., taking out the trash or your MOBA queue pops).
+ Ninjas, robots, and Nazis.
Con:
- No ghost feature.
[20150524 Edit]
Recommendation:
While I enjoyed the game and found it just difficult enough to hold my attention, I wish it had a ghost and/or replay feature. With that being said, if you like Super Meat Boy (2010) and have completed it or grown bored of it, but want something similar, then definitely check out 10 Second Ninja.
If you simply like fast-paced games (e.g., Half-Minute Hero (2012)) or games with a humorous story (e.g., Rock of Ages (2011)), then you should also give 10 Second Ninja a try.
[20150524 Edit]
20220801:
Today I collected a handful of missing stars. At the end of the session, I still had one more to go ("A Hard Place").
Setup: Steam Deck. I kept confusing "R1" and "R2"; by default "R1" is retry and "R2" is throwing a shuriken. So I editted the controller so that "R1" is also throwing a shuriken and "L1" is retry. This was much better. Because this was a remapping at the level of the Steam settings, the game would still show "R1" as the button for retry. I would say this was good as it reduced the possibility of an accidental retry.
"A Rock", 5.54: Repeatedly jump and swipe while moving to the right. This weird technique will allow the ninja to attack both the robot above the platform and the one at the ground level. There's just enough time to make it back to the platform. Use a shuriken to the robot on the left. Then jump and use a shuriken on the last two robots up top.
"o_o", 1.70: Double jump, shuriken, fall into portal, swipe, swipe. After some experimentation, I figured the previous sequence was the way to go and leave the rest to luck (because sometimes I would get 1.72). And, in fact, after enough repetition I got 1.70.
"Re: Vengence", 1.80: I independently came to a similar, if not the same, conclusion as my previous entry. I might have prioritized throwing the shuriken. In general, it is better to throw a shuriken before swiping due to the time it takes the shuriken to travel.
"^_^", 4.76: As with "Re: Vengence," I independently came to a similar conclusion as my previous entry. However, I made sure to throw a shuriken first, followed by two swipes. One of the key observations I made was the importance of beating the platform. That is, finding every moment to jump and reach higher elevation is the primary blocker to a fast time on this level.
Steam Game Time: 10.4 hours (total game time) / 1.8 hours (session game time)
20220802:
Holy moly. So this last level, "A Hard Place," was giving me so much trouble that I tried to look at a speedrun for inspiration. One video I watched was a timescale assisted run which allows for an interesting wall jump. Another video was more applicable but didn't drastically differ in my approach. The main difference was a need for me to cut down on horizontal movement:
- Same: jump and throw a dart while triggering first platform
- Personal: do a small jump for timing
- Same: double jump to the right
- Time Loss: my main variations were "turn left, shuriken, run right, swipe" and "run right, swipe, turn left, shuriken." First, running right should be omitted. Second, "turn left, shuriken, turn right, swipe" is best, as it maintains the same pattern for later.
- Same: double jump and swipe. Time Loss: it's best to try and land as close to the edge as possible
- Time Loss: among variations, I threw a shuriken to the left, landed back inside and swiped the top right robot from below. Upon learning from the YouTube video, I arrived at "tight double jump onto the ledge, turn left, shuriken, turn right, swipe." As mentioned earlier, this creates a repeated pattern which is easier for the fingers to execute.
Note that while I watched the video and learned from it, the speed runner executed the level in 4.74 (with a best of 4.64), and I was only able to do the level in 5.06.
Steam Game Time: 12.5 hours (total game time) / 2.1 hours (session game time)
20220814:
Today I tried hard mode twice, but didn't make it so far because I have forgetten the best routes for each level. As such, afterwards I went through all the levels and tried again. While I did better, there was still a lot I had yet to commit to memory. In particular, I should jot down notes for the portal levels. More generally, a cheat sheet for each level would be good preperation.
Gameplay Log:
Tried hard mode. 20 out of 40.
Tried again. 24 out of 40.
Went through all the levels again.
Tried hard mode again and got to 28 out of 40.
Steam Game Time: 14.2 hours (total game time) / 1.7 hours (session game time)
20220814 Evening & 20220815 AM Hours:
I executed my plan of taking notes and then I tried hard mode again, many times over. Though the notes don't necessarily help, the exercise of creating the notes generally helped. Note that there are situations where the optimization of the individual level is much to risky to use during hard mode.
Overall, I made a lot of progress, and the first bonus level absolutely destroys me (a lot of failures results in losing precious time). I thought I understood how to play it during practice, but its position near the end of so many consecutive levels increases its difficulty. Furthermore, I began to get tired and I was beginning to play poorly and more inconsistently. For example, one of the early levels requires a drop, followed by well-timed shuriken, and then a jump. When fresh, I was probably hitting this movement with at least an 80% success. In contrast, towards the end of play, I was probably looking at most 20% success. With that being said, at one point I was on the 39th level and such progress motivated me to keep on trying despite feeling tired.
I think I'll be able to complete hard mode with a fresh mind.
As a side note, a fun aspect of training for Hard Mode was discovering new optimizations and getting new PBs on various levels.
Gameplay Log:
I went through all the levels and took notes.
Tried hard mode multiple times. Furthest progress was 39 out of 40.
Steam Game Time: 19.5 hours (total game time) / 5.3 hours (session game time)
20220815:
Today I completed hard mode! I think I had approximately three full runs (i.e., expiration of 4 minutes) with the last run ending in success and many partial attempts in between. And when I did succeed, I barely made it: I had completed the mode in about 234 seconds (out of the alloted 240 seconds). However, that's good enough for me! Note that according to the Steam Achievements page, 4% of players (who own 10 Second Ninja on Steam) have completed this achievement. But only 80% of all players have even completed the tutorial so 20% of owners haven't even played the game yet. Normalizing, about 5% of players who have started the game have completed hard mode, and about 9% of players who have completed the first world have completed hard mode.
Steam Game Time: 20.2 hours (total game time) / 0.7 hours (session game time)
20231224:
Ensuring backup of game from Steam Deck to PC.
Steam Game Time: 20.2 hours (cumulative game time) / 0.0 hours (session game time)
10 Second Ninja (PC) (2014)
Relevant Links:
10 Second Ninja Website
10 Second Ninja (Steam Store Page)
10 Second Ninja (PC) (MetaCritic.com)
Date/Time
Thursday, April 30, 2015
@
16:30
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